


We Should Make a Map

by GeorgieHaast



Series: I Solemly Swear I Am Up To No Good [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Creating the Map, The Marauder's Map
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgieHaast/pseuds/GeorgieHaast
Summary: 15th October 1971 - In which Remus is the only one on time and the map is created





	We Should Make a Map

**Author's Note:**

> So I know that the map isn't usually said to have been created until 5th year but it's such a complex object that I feel it must've been developed slowly over lots of years. The rest of its creation is yet to be told

15th October 1971 

“This is useless,” Peter sighed. “We’re lost and late. Professor Slughorn is going to kill us!”  
“Oh lighten up Pete,” Sirius laughed as the stair case they were on began to move again. “We’re not lost, we’ve just misplaced where we’re meant to be going. Old Slugy won’t care and I’m sure Remus will explain that we’re just coming.”  
“I should’ve just gone with Remus, why did I believe you knew a short cut?”  
“Because we’re awesome and you should believe everything we say?” James suggested as he glanced down at the complex maze of staircases.  
“Oh, I wish we had a map.” Peter moaned.  
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sirius said. “You can’t have a map of a building it just…”  
“Sirius you’re a genius!” James interrupted.  
“Wait, why, what did he do?” Peter looked between them as if he’d missed something really important.  
“Oh, I probably didn’t do anything. It’s just that being around me makes people cleverer simply by osmosis.” Sirius shrugged. “What amazing idea have I come up with this time, James.”  
“A map!” James grinned, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We make a map of Hogwarts, it shows all the floors and tracks all the staircases.”  
“Yes,” Peter jumped up and down a little. “We’ll never be late and get told off again.”  
“And,” Sirius added mischievously. “It’ll be great for pranks. I’m sure there are loads of secret passages and hideouts we could find if we were writing it all down. I really am a genius aren’t I, James.”  
“You certainly are my dear, Mr Black. I couldn’t have thought of it without you. We can explain it to Remus in potions, I’m sure he’ll know a spell we can use to track these damn stairs.”  
“About that,” Peter looked nervous again. “That still doesn’t solve the fact that we have no idea where potions is right now.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

“Where the hell have you three been?” Remus whisper-shouted as Sirius slid into the seat next to him with 15 minutes of the lesson to spare.  
“We got caught up saving one of the 6th years from a rabid 2nd year who had been bitten by a deranged owl and was now…”  
“You got lost again didn’t you?” Remus said raising an eyebrow.   
“Well, not exactly but…” Sirius tried to correct.  
Remus just laughed. “I told Peter he shouldn’t trust you when you said you had shortcut and I was right. What was I?”  
“Right,” James echoed as he took the seat on Remus’ right. “You’re always right and that, dear Remus, is why we need your help.”  
“No,” Remus said, immediately.  
“We haven’t even said what we want yet!” Sirius protested.  
“No but I’m not going to help you prank the Slytherins again. Anyway, I’m trying to make notes.”  
“Oh, lighten up Remy,” James laughed, giving him a light shove. “Your notes are already perfect and you know it all anyway. Also, this isn’t actually about pranking the Slytherins…”  
“But I thought you said…” Peter piped in but quickly shut up when James gave him a pointed look. Remus raised an eyebrow but allowed James to continue.  
“This,” Sirius continued in James’ place. “Is about making sure that we’re never late again. We want to make a map of Hogwarts to track the staircases so we stop getting lost. We just need some help with a tracking spell and thought that, as you practically live in the library, you’d probably have come across something which could help.”  
Remus paused his notes for a minute and started chewing the end of his quit thoughtfully. “You know,” he said eventually. “That could actually work. I know a spell which can link drawings to inanimate objects so that they follow the movements. It’s a sort of simpler version of what wizarding artists put on portraits. We’d just need to get a map of all the floors and then… yes, I think that could work.” And with that, Remus returned to making notes on the properties of ginger root in potions

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

“Well that was easier then I thought it would be,” James commented as he and Sirius walked back to Gryffindor common room after potions. Peter hadn’t believed their claim to know a short cut this time and had decided to go with Remus instead to avoid getting lost again.  
“Indeed,” Sirius agreed. “I thought he’d protest a lot more about how we would just misuse it but no, he seemed fine with the idea. And on top of that, he knew a spell off the top of his head. It’s brilliant.”  
“He probably thinks that teaching us some real shortcuts will mean we finally start arriving to lessons on time,” James laughed. Sirius stopped walking and James turned: “What is it mate?”  
“Real shortcuts,” Sirius said simply.  
“What about them?”  
“Well, I’m sure Hogwarts is full of them. You know, hidden passages in the walls and secret rooms. There are a lot of things in this castle which suggest that the founders had way too much time on their hands so I’d be prepared to bet that they threw in a few hidden rooms as well even if it was just so each of them could beat the others at snitch and seeker,” Sirius explained.  
“I guess you’re right,” James mused.  
“And what if we could find them all and put them on the map. It would show the whole of Hogwarts, everything which is hidden. We’d be the only people who knew about it. I mean, it would probably take some research but think of the benefits!”  
James grin widened: “And I bet there are some tunnels out of the castle! Sirius, you are a genius. I say, we start now. From now on, we check every portrait and corridor to find out where all of the hidden passages are and then, we create our map.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

It took months. The problem with hidden passages was that they were, as the name suggested, really well hidden. James and Sirius and never been to the library so much in their lives. The first job was finding a scanning spell which could copy 3D surroundings onto parchment. Sirius was good at art (not that he told the others that) but this needed to be perfectly accurate so it was decided that magic was the best way. Each time that one of them found another passage, they’d scan it and it would appear on the parchment. Sadly, this process could only be used accurately for small areas which you could picture: you could get the general shape of a whole floor and the staircases in one go if you’d walked around it enough but for the accuracy of specific secret passages, you had to find them first.  
By the end of the first month of work, they had a general map of all of the known rooms in the castle on all of the floors and they’d manage to plot some stationary staircases.  
It took another 2 months to get the staircases to move. Remus had said it was a simple spell and he was right, the incantation and wand movement were, indeed, simple. However, the scale was huge. Mapping one staircase was easy, but all 142? That was something else. With the basics done, it was just a matter of the hidden rooms and passages.  
To everyone's surprise, Peter was by far the best at finding passages within the castle. Teachers weren’t suspicious when he asked where something was (unlike with James and Sirius who they always assumed were up to no good). Most of the passages, Peter managed to just stumble across by accident when he was wondering the castle looking for food, however, but no one cared how he’d found them, just the fact that he had.  
Passages out of the castle, on the other hand, were Sirius and James’ area of expertise. Remus, however, did seem to know about a lot of them. He didn’t fully approve of using the map, which had started out as a way of not being late to class, as a method of breaking the rules. All the same, he did provide some useful hints as to what they might be looking for: “I was in the library rather late last night, after Madam Pince had left, and I accidentally found myself in the restrictive section where someone had left a book lying around which said there are 6 secret passages out of Hogwarts. I don’t know why I thought that would interest you, but if it did then the book is probably under bookshelf P-Q at the left hand end of the 3rd shelf…oh and Madam Pince usually finishes at 11:00”.   
By the end of first year, the 4 of them had found all 6 of the passages out of Hogwarts and, as far as they were aware, all of the hidden rooms inside it as well. They’d also managed to work out how to open them all after many, many attempts (the kitchens were only opened because Sirius joked that the pear looked sad, causing James to tickle it in an attempt to cheer it up).  
And so the map was completed, and apart from a few additions of extra rooms, it wasn’t changed at all for the next few years


End file.
